These boots were(n't) made for walking...

Make

I know it’s an old-fashioned idea, but I love these traditional baby bootees! They’re pretty simple to knit, and quick, too. I’ve just made these for a cousin who’s had her first baby, a gorgeous little boy, as a ‘welcome to the world’ present. The design includes a lovely lacy, turn-over top, and they have holes you can thread with ribbons if you so desire. The only slightly tricky part about making them is that, after you’ve knitted the lacy section on the foot, you have to pick up stitches to rejoin the remainder of the work. As with all baby garments, it’s kind to sew the seams as flat as possible when you make them up, so that the little person they’re intended for doesn’t have an uncomfortable ridge to lie on.

I've made a pair of these for each of my family and friends as a gift for their first baby, and I know that at least some of them have used them to keep those cute little feet warm; but even if you don’t feel they’re appropriate footwear for today’s baby-about-town, they make a lovely keepsake.

The pattern for these has been passed down through my family, and its origins are lost in the mists of time. Mum has a handwritten version, with years’ worth of counted rows marked off on all the blank areas of the page, speaking of the dozens of pairs she’s lovingly created over decades. Mine was proudly typed out by my brother on his first computer, and printed out, in red, if you please, on a very state-of-the-art dot-matrix printer, circa 1983, which means I must have been knitting them for over thirty years. As with everything she has ever done, my lovely Mum was so patient in teaching me to knit when I was a small girl, praising my early, holey and misshapen efforts and encouraging me to try more complex and rewarding patterns as my skills improved. Mum also taught me to sew; she was ingenious, and made all our curtains, cushion covers and other soft furnishings using a hand-turned, Victorian Singer sewing machine, which was glorious in black and gold, smelled mysteriously of oil, and made a satisfying whirring as she cranked the handle to sew. As she needed one hand to turn the wheel, it fell to me, once I was big enough, to help guide the fabric on its passage and keep the line straight, a responsibility I took very seriously as a small girl. Long drops of curtain fabrics in bold browns and oranges in the seventies gave way to delicate floral, Laura Ashley-inspired designs in the eighties, and heavier chintzes in the nineties. It was only last year that the old sewing machine finally went for scrap, after a century of sterling service helping to create the history of a family. The new, electric model might be more reliable and less idiosyncratic to use, but it doesn’t have the romance of the Singer; I wonder what we’ll make with it?